1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the delivery of advertisements (“ads”) to users over a network, such as by serving ads to Web sites viewed by users browsing the World Wide Web. In particular, the present invention is related to automatically determining whether a particular segment of users should be targeted for ad delivery via a particular Web site.
2. Background
Certain online advertisement (“ad”) networks enable online ads to be served to users visiting the Web sites of publishers that are participating in the online ad network. To improve the performance of such online ad networks, it may be deemed desirable to target online ads to certain user groups or “segments.” For example, a user segment may be deemed a desirable audience for certain online ads because members of the user segment are deemed likely to click on those ads when viewing them on a publisher Web site or to perform some desired action, termed a “conversion,” responsive to viewing the ads on a publisher Web site. However, there are certain difficulties inherent in trying to administer an online ad network that enables selective targeting of user segments across various publisher Web sites.